South of Midnight Wiki

South of Midnight

South of Midnight is a 2025 action-adventure game developed by Compulsion Games and published by Xbox Game Studios. Set in a fictionalized American Deep South, it follows Hazel Flood, a young woman who learns an ancient weaving power after her hometown of Prospero is devastated by a hurricane, becoming a Weaver who mends broken spirits and battles corrupted creatures called Haints. Emulating stop-motion animation for its cinematic presentation, the game blends acrobatic third-person combat with magical weaving powers across a Southern Gothic reality of mythic creatures from folk legend. Released for Windows and Xbox Series X/S on April 8, 2025, and for Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5 on March 31, 2026, it received generally positive reviews and won Games for Impact at The Game Awards 2025, plus awards at the D.I.C.E., Annie, and BAFTA Games awards.

• Weaver Power: Hazel learns the ancient weaving power, letting her perceive and tap the Strands of the Grand Tapestry, battle Haints, repair the tears binding all creation, and gather and contain the painful memories of mythic creatures.
• Hook Combat: Hazel fights with a pair of hooks; five consecutive melee attacks form a combo, with a quick dodge to evade, and a well-timed dodge triggers a strand blast damaging nearby enemies.
• Weaving Spells: Hazel can cast magical spells with short cooldowns to stun enemies, push them away, or pull them towards her, adding light crowd control to melee.
• Crouton the Puppet: A small puppet companion that Hazel throws at enemies to make them attack their allies for a short time, and which can squeeze into tunnels to reach new areas.
• Stop-Motion Presentation: The game emulates stop-motion animation for its cutscenes, with an option to toggle it off.
• Haints & Stigma: Hazel fights Haints, physical manifestations of deep-rooted sorrows and trauma, created when Stigma damages the strands of the Grand Tapestry; she unravels downed Haints to cleanse them.
• Traversal & Exploration: Highly acrobatic movement with double jump, wall running, and gliding; exploring off-path yields Floofs to buy combat upgrades and health filaments that raise max health.
• Echo Solidification & Puzzles: Hazel solidifies past Echo objects to reach inaccessible areas, and navigates hazards like explosive mushrooms and spiking thorns.
• Boss Mythic Creatures: Players face Southern folk creatures such as Two-Toed Tom, Rougarou, Altamaha-ha, Huggin' Molly, and Kooshma, many haunted by past events and resolved by bottling their memories onto a bottle tree.
• Fourteen Chapters: The story unfolds across fourteen chapters, from Night of the Flood to Midnight, mixing linear progression with side exploration.